“In 1991, our founder, Jerome A. Chazen, MBA ’50, recognized the need for a new kind of leader: one who understands cross-cultural issues and their impact on business. That vision led to the creation of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business, which serves as the hub of global activity at Columbia Business School.”

Who knew that Audrey Stewart CBS ’16 spent time in Taiwan working on nuclear weapon detection for the US Army?

Traveling abroad with a group as awesome as this is a natural catalyst for conversations about … religion, politics, family, and hey, even hair type (Beleza Natural, Operations Management 101); conversations too taboo within the confines of a classroom, yet somewhat organic and free-flowing when you’re chilling in a bus with the lush forest of Rio as your backdrop.

For me – these conversations are the ‘deep and meaningful’ that help us know each other better; the real forage for international and cross-cultural capital that makes us more informed and educated business people.

Company #7 – BNDES takes us through what it takes to work at Brazil’s leading development bank.The Famous Cathedral de San Sebastian in Rio De Janeiro.The iconic PetroBras building in central Rio.Lunch at the historic Confeitaria Colombo, a taste of colonial Rio.Company #9 – The Operational Centre of Rio De Janeiro, a world class live database tracking weather, traffic and crime to mitigate tim-sensitive issues such as mudslides. (picture by Vitor Selles, CBS ’16)Company #10 – Beleza Natural prides itself for serving the needs of communities of Brazilian women with intensely curly hair, giving it their signature “relaxante” treatment for more relaxed, softer and shiner hair for better confidence 🙂Co-Founder of Beleza Natural, Leila Veliz – “Working at McDonald’s was my first MBA”, on understanding the need for a continuous flow system in running an operations-based service business.“Be beautiful and free!” Fun fact – All Beleza Natural models are either customers or staff; the company believes in realistic, everyday beauty. All smiles @ Erin Williams, CBS ’16Lesson #1 (from Core Operations Class) – An “assembly-line” (Ford model) process in action. In case recruiting doesn’t go according to plan…Operations Strategy lesson no.2 – some assembly lines are less efficient than others..And some others…

#Advice for future Chazen travelers – book the latest flight back! You won’t regret it 🙂

The Christ Redeemer. Photo courtesy of Johnny Yaacoub, CBS ’16Panoramic chill by Ipanema beach.The Selaron Steps, the famous work of a Chilean-born artist in the artsy neighbourhood of Santa Teresa.Parque Lage. Brunch with a beautiful botanical backdrop.The Orquestra Voadora – world-renowned marching brass band practicing for the Rio Carnival. If we could only stay another week..Breathtaking view of Rio De Janeiro from Sugar Loaf mountain.On the very last day, with the Sugarloaf Mountain as the backdrop.Tchau Tchau! (bye bye)

Lunch at farm Dar Salima- We had delicious grilled meat in a rural cottage that functioned as a B&B. The home overlooked olive trees, vineyards and mountains. I would definitely consider making a trip back to this place- they even had a honeymoon suite (which we all visited as an awkward group of 30).

Land’or cheese factory tour- As a cheese lover, and consumer of similar products made by the Laughing Cow, I was particularly fond of the factory visit at Land’or. We visited the pasteurization process, the incorporation of bacteria, and the molding and aging process. It was also eye opening to learn how many additives there were in the cheese triangles that I have eaten my whole life. The greatest part though was probably seeing how silly we looked in all our outfits.

Celebrating Maria’s Birthday- Never in my life had I done a group rendition of “Happy Birthday” in the middle of a corporate presentation. While at Carrefour, one of our classmates let out that another classmate was celebrating her birthday that day. We continued the celebration later that night by surprising Maria with a birthday cake and bottle of champagne at dinner.

A night at Le Boeuf sur le Toit- Our TA, Olivier wanted a fun night for us since we were going to have a later start the next morning, and made a reservation at an entertainment-included restaurant. While we were going there for dinner, it was more of a nightclub. They had boisterous live music and the way to clap along or participate was to dance and use your flatware to clang on the metal tables and lampshades.

Curfew goodbye- For our last night in Tunisia, we had planned to have a grand bash. We made reservations for dinner and late-night belly dancing. Unfortunately, all those plans came to a halt when the government imposed a nationwide curfew from 8PM-5AM. There had been some civil unrest in other parts of Tunisia, but it reached Tunis on Friday. The hotel arranged a room for us to have dinner and we played board games long into the night.

The best part of this trip was building bonds with my classmates. Even though everyone was a fall-term second-year, I did not most of them. We had countless meaningful conversations during our bus rides and sit-down meals. Many jokes were told. Many, many shenanigans occurred. We had an amazing time. Shukraan, Tunisia!

Our time in India was quite eye-opening in terms of business lessons learned.

Perhaps the most common refrain we heard, and one that gives me the greatest hope for the future of the country is the major opportunity for economic growth that lies ahead. This is due to a combination of intrinsic factors in India, as well as international developments that make India relatively more attractive. For instance, India’s youth cohort is extremely large and there is a massive number of millennials ready to work. This robust addition to the labor force stands in contrast to many developed nations that face an employment crisis as the population reaches retirement. Furthermore, the slowdown of China and other emerging market nations mean that India is an increasingly attractive place for foreign direct investment. Since India is not a commodity economy and has a massive consumer base, it should be able to capture investments that are leaving these other countries in search of a better combination of stability and returns.

Another common discussion point was the stark gap between rich and poor and rural and urban. Even as millions of Indians enter into the middle class, there is still a vast chasm between the rich and the poor in the country. This occurs both in major metropoles where 5 star hotels neighbor massive slums, as well as in more geographically dispersed dichotomies between urban and rural areas. Finding ways to lift the fortunes of the poor without triggering even more migration into the already overpopulated major cities will be a major challenge for India going forward.

Another issue that came up frequently in conversations was the importance of investing in reliable infrastructure. From our conversations with Airtel, we learned that telecom is perhaps the most developed form of infrastructure thus far, and one can observe this given the widespread penetration of mobile phones across the country. The train systems are also quite extensive, partly due to the British colonial heritage. However, critical systems like water and sanitation are still underdeveloped, and the lack of these feed the healthcare crisis. It will require significant investment from the public and private sectors to bring these basic pieces of infrastructure up to snuff to promote a healthy workforce. Roads, airports and ports will also require continued attention in order to enable movement of goods and people and to power commerce.

We also noticed the contrast between conglomerates and entrepreneurial ventures in India. Most of the major companies there are diversified corporations, often partly family-owned, that reach across many sectors. These include Tata, Reliance, and Airtel. However, it seems like the next stage of breakthrough growth will need to come from new companies with the ability to hire new workers. In order to employ the millions of people entering into the workforce, the Indian economy will need to nurture start up firms. But the paradox is, most young people aspire to work for one of these well-regarded companies, or to find reliable employment in the very large public sector, and are loathe to try their luck at starting a new company or working for an unproven one. The Indian culture is more risk averse than the American one, and working for a failed company is seen as a personal shortcoming rather than just the way the business world goes. So long as young people shy away from small, innovative companies, India will struggle to incubate the kind of enterprises that grow and create jobs. Fortunately, the national government is promoting a program called “Start Up India” that provides loans to poorer people in order to give them funding for new ventures. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a trend that helps supercharge the next stage of economic growth.

Finally, all of these business lessons are moot if the environmental situation continues to worsen in India. Climate change poses a serious threat to the future of the country, and is already wreaking havoc on commerce and productivity. India is in the unenviable position of figuring out how to industrialize and develop while limiting greenhouse gas emissions and other polluting actions. It will be a major challenge to find clever ways to both grow the economy and shrink the environmental footprint, but it’s absolutely critical to create sustainable development.

A big focus of the second half of the trip has been on alternative financing of businesses. From the American Chamber of Commerce meeting, we were told that a lot of goals had been set in order to make Tunisia more attractive as a destination for foreign investments. The government institutions and entrepreneurs did not agree on much at the meeting, but they did reach consensus on a lack of capital.

We had meetings with a number of organizations outside of traditional banking that finance local businesses. The African Development Bank focuses on investing in projects in businesses that are intended to further development in Tunisia. Its financing is backed by its member countries and development finance institutions (DFIs). The Abraaj group, a private equity firm with $9B AUM, was the most traditional financial institution we met. Its LPs are focused on a single bottom line. The firm made its first wholly owned investment- a private hospital- in Tunisia in 2014. We had the opportunity to visit the clinic, and it was clear that along with changing management, they were drastically modernizing their labs and rooms. AfricInvest is one of the most experienced private equity firms, but nearly 85% of its funding comes from DFIs. The International Finance Corporation has a triple bottom line with only 0.3% of its total portfolio in Tunisia. IFC’s role in Tunisia is to source and aid investment to make it easier for investments to happen. The organization has connections through all industries and knows the major players. It also funds enda-inter-arabe, the largest microfinance institution in Tunisia. It provides financing to 270,000 businesses. When the local business owners were asked why they preferred enda-inter-arabe for funding as opposed to a traditional bank, their response was that enda provided a lot of advice in starting their businesses as well as emotional support.

The government does not have the capacity to stimulate all economic growth, and has relied on the help of these financial institutions to support entrepreneurs.

Brrr… it was a cold first couple of days in Tunis. Most of us were underprepared for the climate. Thankfully with each passing day, it has become a degree (Celsius!) warmer.

After kicking things off at a beautiful restaurant the night before, we had an early start to visit SAH Lilas, a diaper and sanitary napkin manufacturing company. We saw the napkin/toilet paper/paper towel production process from raw materials to finished product, as if it were a live operations class. We sat for a formal presentation, where we learned about the start of the business. The founder is a woman, which is something the firm is particularly proud of since she is a self-made CEO of a publicly traded company. The pride of feminine liberalism is a continuing theme throughout our company visits and conversations with locals. During numerous meetings people have made a point to stress Tunisia’s support for women’s rights, especially in comparison to its neighboring countries and other Muslim nations. There is plenty of action to back up these words- every meeting we have attended thus far has had a female presenter or CEO.

While at Lilas, a classmate raised the question of how the company functions in other parts of the world with regards to the Tunisian Dinar. Tunisia has an unusual practice with its currency that prohibits its existence outside of Tunisia. Tourists need to exchange dinars back to their native currency prior to leaving the country. Companies that purchase equipment abroad need to make transactions through the central bank and the central bank pays the foreign company. Tunisia-based multinational companies have reserves held at the central bank, but do not partake in the practice of currency hedging. I imagine this only adds to the more apparent hurdles international firms consider when investing in Tunisia.

We have had great conversations with the other organizations we have met thus far, and are looking forward to learning more. And a lot more dancing